A Navajo Figural Wood Sculpture Charlie Willeto c. 1964 wood, paint "For Navajo, carving figures for other than ritual function was forbidden and then uncommon up to the 1970s. Willeto's choice to carve figures and animals defied tribal convention while expressing the Navajo penchant for independence and freedom. Possibly he was able to protect himself with songs and prayers from the dangers of carving the forms he did. There is a precedent for altering established patterns, seen in the woven rugs of the esteemed Navajo medicine man Hosteen Klah in the early twentieth century. For a long time, figural weaving was taboo among Navajos, but in 1913 Klah began to replicate religious figural sandpaintings in his woven designs. Like Klah, Willeto followed his own muse, "Kogan, Lee, "An Ordered Universe: The Art of Willeto," in Collective Willeto: The Visionary Carvings of a Navajo Artist, Shonto Begay, Walter Hopps, Lee Kogan, Greg LaChapelle, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 2002, pg. 15. Height: 27 ¼ inches HID03101062020 © 2020 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

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